STAYING VERTICAL: Alain Guiraudie is back once more -- with yet another jaw-dropper

People do the strangest things in the films of Frenchman, Alain Guiraudie, but damned if the guy doesn't make those things somehow work. After The King of Escape and to herald the debut of Stranger by the Lake, the FSLC in 2014 hosted a retrospective of Guiraudie's work which was in itself quite eye-opening. Now comes his latest movie, STAYING VERTICAL (Rester vertical) and it is every bit as bizarre, riveting and entertaining as the rest of his oeuvre. And definitely not for the mainstream crowd.

M. Guiraudie, pictured at right, looks to my eyes remarkably like an older version of his leading man in this new film (played by Damien Bonnard, shown below and further below). The fact that M. Bonnard plays a filmmaker who's having some trouble creating his latest work, simply adds to this connection. The plot of Staying Vertical ricochets all over the place, introducing characters who interact with each, often sexually, in ways that might seem crazy in a film by anyone else. But for Guiraudie pansexuality and polysexuality seem the norm, as does sexuality between folk of all ages, young adult to grandpappy.

And, yes, not only are sex organs on full display here (as is often the case with Guiraudie), you can expect to see the male ones engorged. (M. Bonnard, unless a prosthetic was used, is very well endowed.) And yet there is no trace of the snickering, shocked or shameful here. Sex, as usual with this filmmaker, is to be enjoyed, if often at a cost, especially when all the rest of the equation -- need, desire, jealousy, and the lot -- come into play.

The sex here, bizarre as it sometimes may look, is also more grounded and vital than in the other Guiraudie films I've seen. For instance, the first time we see the leading lady's sex, in voluptuous close-up, she is about to be pleasured orally by Bonnard's character. We soon after see a similar shot, but then -- suddenly -- a newborn emerges from that orifice. (India Hair, above, with rifle, plays this woman, and she she brings a very unusual combination of need, anger and strength to the role.)

There's a new wrinkle here, however: the introduction into Guiraudie's work of a baby and what this infant means to its father, mother, and the world at large. What this poor kid goes through may surprise and shock you -- wolf bait, anyone? -- but his appearance and importance to the film adds immeasurably to the humanity that holds this odd and careening movie together.

Unusual sexual couplings (even one of the medical sort, above), the difficulty of commitment, sheep and wolves, and anal sex as an aid to euthanasia -- all this and more are offered up in the filmmaker's look at what may seem to many viewers, TrustMovies included, as some kind of alternate universe. But it is one that we might gainfully learn from. And, oh, did I mention that this film is sometimes very funny, too? (The headline that appears on a newspaper toward the film's finale is as good as anything the National Enquirer has ever given us.)

All of Guiraudie's movies, I think, are political -- remember: he also gave us, back in 2001, that marvelous The Old Dream That Moves (Ce vieux rêve qui bouge) -- and this one is, too. Yet, if you try to pin it down to some single idea or another, it seems to half evaporate. Morality, creativity, religion, autonomy, the self vs the other: the connections are all here, but what they might mean dances deliciously in front of you and remains just out of reach. Yet the movie's hold on you does not let go.

I would not have missed this film for anything. And I'll want to see it again, down the road. But recommending it? Only if you're willing to drop, at least temporarily, your preconceptions and go with Guiraudie's flow. The rewards are spectacular. But they'll probably come to you piecemeal, and over some time, post-viewing.

From Strand Releasing and running 100 minutes, Staying Vertical opens this Friday, January 20, in New York City at the FSLC's Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, and at the IFC Center. In Los Angeles, you can see it beginning this Friday at Laemmle's Royal, and (at morning screenings only on Saturday and Sunday: think of it as going to temple or church) at the Playhouse 7 in Pasadena. Eventually, it will arrive on DVD and digital, so if you're not on either coast, hold on.

Better late than... Alain Guiraudie's succulent THE KING OF ESCAPE gets theatrical premiere at AFA

Finally. This odd and original movie, five years old -- from a director, Alain Guiraudie, who's been working for nearly a quarter century but only now (thanks to Stranger by the Lake) is getting some deserved notoriety -- is at last receiving its U.S. theatrical release via Anthology Film Archives here in New York City. In THE KING OF ESCAPE, M. Guiraudie, shown below back in 2009 when this film was made, picks up on themes and places seen later in Stranger by the Lake.

Here are all kinds of sexuality (particularly homo- and bi-), the working class' need to offset its work with relaxation, and locations set in the glorious and sparsely populated French countryside. But as dark and unsettling as was Stranger by the Lake regarding our need for self-abasement and punishment, sex and death, The King of Escape, is every bit as light-hearted and frisky as its explores our entwined need for the fulfillment of life, love and sex, while honoring (and questioning) the family ties that bind.

Both Stranger and King are quite enjoyable to watch and very well-made, with the latter perhaps gaining an edge over the former due to its sheer originality and joie de vivre. (I've now seen both films twice.) What happens in King is bizarre and all over the place yet, as depicted by Guiraudie, it's remains oddly believable--and certainly understandable.

I first covered the film (stills from which are shown above and below) when it initially played NYC as part of the 2010 Rendez-vous with French Cinema and found it an unusually enticing and surprising work, with a wonderfully inclusive sense of the amazements that sex of all kinds can bring. In one of its best scenes, an 80-year-old man, known for the size of his member and still randy as hell (played by Jean Toscan, shown below, center), explains to his new half-his-age love, how he spent the first several decades of his marriage dutifully fucking his wife each day (along with several other ladies), never realizing till now that there was a whole regiment of men out there, just waiting to be explored and pleased.

The marketing of tractors, the importance of their color, and the gay and overweight fellow who sells them (the marvelous Ludovic Berthillot, below); competition among salesmen; a Viagra-like mushroom found in the local terrain, and a gorgeous and wonderfully pliable young girl (Hafsia Herzi, seen above in several shots) who gets a crush on our gay hero when he tries to protect her from some nasty local boys -- all of this combines to create a world never before seen by us prosaic Americans.

It's difficult to explain just how cleverly Guiraudie has wrapped all this together -- so loosely yet so neatly. His attitude toward it all is clear and non-judgmental and so allows us to view surprising things in a manner that we've not yet experienced. And for once, the policeman in charge of things (below, left) turn out to be, well, quite helpful and understanding.

The King of Escape is as unusual a movie as you are likely to find, so I urge you to seek it out. This week-long run may be your first and last chance to view it, here in the USA, at least. The film plays at AFA beginning this Friday, April 11, through Thursday, April 17. Click here for directions and here for tickets.

Celebrating STRANGER BY THE LAKE's opening, the FSLC offers an Alain Guiraudie retrospective

Now that TrustMovies has seen four of the very unusual films of Alain Guiraudie (two of them twice, and one of them, a short, mostly without its English subtitles), I'm on board with the notion that this non-mainstream French movie-maker is a force with which to reckon. (The director, with the sun clearly in his eyes, is shown at left during the most recent Cannes film fest.) Though I don't know quite what to make of a couple of his earlier films, it seems to me pretty clear that with each new one, he grows more comprehen-sible and enjoyable -- unless you're the type of film-goer who demands inscrutability.

This is not to say that M. Guiraudie is anywhere near "obvious." Hardly. Instead, his movies draw you in while making you puzzle things out. But of late, he is giving his audience a bit more terra firma on which to stand while doing that puzzling. His latest film, STRANGER BY THE LAKE, (L'inconnu du lac), which I covered briefly when it played the New York Film Festival last fall (that post is here), finally opens this coming Friday, January 24, in New York (at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center and the IFC Center) and in Los Angeles on January 31 (Laemmle's Playhouse 7).

In telling its tale of a young man who goes to a gay cruising area to get his rocks off, as well to a to visit friends, Guiraudie broadens his canvas and deepens his themes. Our "hero" Franck (Pierre Delladonchamps, above, left, and below, right) meets a couple of unusual fellows -- one an overweight but interesting and presumably straight man (Patrick D'Assumçao, above, right) who may be looking for something more; 

another a hot-looking hunk (Christophe Paou, above, left) who definitely wants something more -- and so comes face to face with a creepy and hugely unsettling death wish. The result is a movie that quietly takes hold of your throat and begins ever-so-slightly to squeeze.

Interestingly, Stranger by the Lake picks up on themes and places seen earlier in M. Guiraudie's very unusual movie The King of Escape (Le roi de l'évasion): all kinds of sexuality (particularly homo- and bi-), the working class' need to offset their work with relaxation, and locations set in the glorious and sparsely populated French countryside. But as relatively lighthearted as is King of Escape, Stranger/Lake is every bit as dark, exploring our entwined needs for the fulfillment of life, love, sex and death.

Both films are quite enjoyable to watch and very well-made, with Stranger an improvement even over King -- which proved an even bigger improvement over two of Guiraudie's earlier works that I also watched in preparation for the upcoming series, titled Alain Guiraudie: King of Escape, from the Film Society of Lincoln Center which opens Friday at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, concurrent with the debut of the filmmaker's latest work.

I covered King of Escape (stills from the film are shown above and below) when it played NYC as part of the 2010 Rendez-vous with French Cinema and found it an unusually enticing and surprising work, with a wonderfully inclusive sense of the amazements that sex of all kinds can bring. In one of its best scenes, an 80-year-old man, hung like a horse and still randy as hell (played by Jean Toscan, shown below, center), explains to his new half-his-age love, how he spent the first several decades of his marriage dutifully fucking his wife each day (along with several other ladies), never realizing till now that there was a whole regiment of men out there, just waiting to be explored and pleased.

In all, this series unleashes nine of Guiraudie's films (missing is only the movie he made for French television in 2008, On m'a volé mon adolescence). Each that I've seen seems to explore the human need for connection via the physical body. Guiraudie's 1998 short La force des chose finds that connection via physical abuse and kidnapping (not to worry: this is all on a lighter comic/philosophical plane). Although --since this was the one film, 15 minutes in length, 11 of which were shown without English subtitles, that I couldn't fully understand -- you'll have to take my ideas with a grain of salt. (What's that? Ah, I see: You do this as a matter of course.)

More interesting -- as well as, at 107 minutes, the lengthiest of Guiraudie's films I've seen -- is his 2003 NO REST FOR THE BRAVE (Pas de repos pour les braves). In some ways this is the most challenging of the four films, if also the least accessible. In it, the filmmaker tackles our fear of death (maybe also our even deeper fear of life), as his hero, Basile (played by Thomas Suire, in his film debut), plays a kid who refuses to sleep because he's afraid he'll never again awaken.

The movie itself is often like a dream: People -- the working class, as in all of his films -- come and go bizarrely; our hero moves from the City of the Living to Deadville; and there is one simply gorgeous, mystical, chilling special effect in which an old man disappears under a wave.

There is also, being French, a whole lot of philosophical... well, drivel is maybe too strong a word, but the film does veer toward pretension now and again. But it is also, from time to time, quite a lot of fun, as we engage in everything from car chases (with the villains on foot) to loveplay and hair-breath escapes. In a way this movie is a genre-jumper -- except that Guiraudie, here testing the waters with his first full-length endeavor, doesn't always seem sure which genre he's actually in.

The film is also a coming-of-age/coming-of-intelligence movie, as well as sci-fi/fantasy. So gear up for a trip and a half. If you miss it during the FSLC's retrospective, never fear. It is actually available in the USA via TLA Video where you can stream it at a reasonable price. There are five more films, full-length and short, to be seen in the series. Click here to see the entire Guiraudie schedule.

The photo of M. Guiraudie, at top, is by

Gareth Cattermole, courtesy of Getty Images.

The 51st Annual NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL is upon us: Guiraudie's STRANGER BY THE LAKE & Lanzmann's LAST OF THE UNJUST in U.S. debut

It begins this Friday, September 27, and runs through Sunday, October 13. In addition to all the films from top-flight fests around the world, here making their U.S. premiere, there will also be several world premieres. As usual there will also be the interesting, experimental Views from the Avant Garde (with some of the screenings free this year!); the Gala Tributes (to Blanchett & Fiennes); the NYFF Convergence initiative; films by two Emerging Artists (Joanna Hogg and Fernando Eimbcke); the Retrospective (Does the name Godard ring a bell? And do you, as I, wish that, in this case, it belonged to Agnès or Thierry?); a series of Revivals and another that encompasses new Shorts; and all this only covers about half of it.

Yes, friends: The New York Film Festival is about to be in full swing, with so much going on, that the only possible way you could see it all would be to clone yourself at least thrice. Events will be happening often simultaneously at seven different venues (click and scroll down to see 'em all.) TrustMovies has managed to attend only two of the press screenings, and both films were more than worthwhile. Since both are receiving a theatrical release in the months to come, I'll cover them but briefly now, with more later if and when when they finally reach the Netflix streaming facility -- concerning the content of which this blog is now dedicated to giving you a heads-up.

The Last of the Unjust 

(Le Dernier des injustes)

a documentary by Claude Lanzmann

In French and German with English subtitles,

218 minutes (yes, that's 3 hours and 38 minutes)

M. Lanzmann will appear in person for Q&A on Sunday, September 29!

Long, but less than half the length of his monumental (and finally monumentally boring: the trains, the trains!) Holocaust documentary, Shoah, this "new" film from Claude Lanzmann (shown at right, and below and above) was actually shot almost 40 years ago, and an additional 30 years after the events recalled by its subject, Benjamin Murmelstein (shown at right in the photo, top), the last Jewish Elder of the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Lanzmann, above by the railroad track, is still into trains, but nothing as all-consuming as in the earlier doc. Here he interviews Murmelstein, who was brought to trial post-WWII for his supposed crimes and collaboration with the Nazis, but he was let go unscathed. The man explains some things, while completely leaving out any mention of others. He's full of spunk, clearly loves to talk and had what appears to be a remarkable memory, though whether he was a completely "reliable witness," I rather doubt.

I’m not sure that I trust Murmelstein's remembrances, even though, in this film, he’s all we have. Lanzman offers a few pertinent questions and occasionally tries to draw the man further out, but to not much avail. Mumelstein has such energy and drive, however, that for quite awhile he pulled me in. But as the movie wore on, by the end I was tired of his nattering voice and found myself questioning much that he said. (His comments on how laughable is Arendt's "banality-of-evil" theory regarding Adolf Eichman completely bypasses, of course, her more important comments about how the Jews might better have survived had they not been so organizedly in thrall to leaders like Murmelstein.)

Further, I would have liked to have known what went on at his trial, what happened to his family, and other things we don’t learn. But the film certainly deserves a place of important in permanent Holocaust history by virtue of its subject, and the fact that this is the only such interview that exists. Even considering all the Holocaust movies I’ve already seen, I still learned a lot from this one. And I only nodded off a couple of times during the nearly 4-hour film -- both of them when that cantor was singing (and singing and singing!). M. Lanzmann seems intent on memorializing the victims via religion. And my regular readers will know by now that I have little taste for organized religion of any kind.

For those who cannot attend the film's single festival screening at 1pm on Sunday, September 29, in Alice Tully Hall, not to worry: The Last of the Unjust is being distributed here in the USA by Cohen Media Group.

Stranger by the Lake 

(L’Inconnu du lac)

written and directed by Alain Guiraudie.

In French with English subtitles, 97 minutes

M. Guiraudie will appear in person for a Q&A on Monday, September 30!

This remarkable follow-up by Alain Guiraudie (shown at left) to his also remarkable The King of Escape (click and scroll down) -- is one hot movie. It's also very cool. Might as well tell you upfront that this habits-of-homosexuals film offers a few short hardcore moments. So if you object to gay-themed movies or full-frontal passion on either moral grounds or (for you fellows) any unseemly comparison with your own limited cock size, by all means avoid this film. (According to one of the Findings pages in Harper's magazine, the French are said to possess Europe's largest penises.)

In any case, the movie takes place in and around a gay cruising area by a lake (below) in a relatively remote section of French countryside where men meet for some sunbathing, sex and conversation. Then, on an early evening in which light is still visible -- suddenly, surreptitiously -- one man kills another.

Why? What does this mean, other than murder? And why does not the fellow who has seen all this from afar, hidden from both victim and killer, alert the inspector who's investigating the crime? Well, he's got a lech for the perp and perhaps something more. A death wish? Hard to say, exactly. But something's going on.... That perp (the mysterious and handsome Christophe Paou, at left, below) is a hunk of major proportions and, as it turns out, a very versatile, talented and willing sexual partner, too.

As hot as the sex is here, the friendship that grows between our "hero" (acted with an almost perfect blend of decency, horniness and self-effacement by Pierre Deladonchamps, shown at right, above and below, and four photos up, in the water), and a heavy-set fellow (beautifully played by Patrick d'Assumçao, below, left) with whom he has increasingly interesting conversations, is every bit as riveting as that sex and twice as endearing.

Slow-moving yet without a wasted frame, Stranger by the Lake accrues near-monumental suspense and discomfort as it plays out. The final moments at nightfall -- as the barely visible skin over the beautiful collarbones of one of our characters fades into black -- are among film history's most memorably fraught and ambivalent.

This exquisite movie (a major winner at Cannes) is made all the more so by its transgressive visuals and theme. It should at the very least see success on the art film circuit, and gain interest and a possible release for Guiraudie's earlier odd charmer, that King of Escape.

If you don't catch either of the festival's two screenings (Monday, September 30, at 9:15pm in Alice Tully Hall or Wednesday, October 2, at 1pm in the Francesca Beale Theater), the film has been picked up for U.S. theatrical distribution by Strand Releasing.